“Then,” said Tom with a shrug, “I fail to see why you’re going around acting like Lady Macbeth or something. It wasn’t your fault and you didn’t do it. Lighten up.”
She stared at him, uncertain whether to hit him or to laugh. “I broke the law by not going to the police.”
“So get a good lawyer and you’ll get a slap on the wrist. Don’t spend the rest of your life doing penance with an egocentric Frenchman.”
“How do you suggest I spend the rest of my life?” she demanded in her stiffest tone of voice, one that would do justice to Madame Langlois at her starchiest.
Tom shrugged, grinning that engaging grin. “It’s not for me to say. But while you’re thinking about it you might consider that egocentric Americans have their advantages.”
The apartment was empty. He moved silently down the hallways, listening, watching. No sign of either of them, but they’d be back, sooner or later.
He’d be back, too. When they least expected it he’d be there. Watching, listening, waiting. He was silence, waiting to engulf them. He laughed soundlessly as he moved over to a window, looking down into the busy street below. He was silence, and they were ceaseless noise. And he would triumph.
Tom wondered whether he’d pushed her too far. That was as close as he could come to a declaration, and once more he felt as if he were on a precipice. Most of his encounters with Claire MacIntyre had felt that way. The two of them seemed to go lurching and staggering from crisis to crisis, and each time he told himself this would make or break them.
Just moments ago he convinced himself if she told him what the police wanted her for, then he’d have a sign to go ahead. If she trusted him more than that elegant lover of hers he’d be halfway there. Now he was simply waiting to see whether she’d jump off the bed and stalk from the room, that lovely little nose of hers in the air.
Tom waited, not even aware that he was holding his breath, while she looked at him, her shadowed, tragic eyes unreadable. And then suddenly, blessedly, she smiled. “You’re a swine, Parkhurst,” she said. “I think if I’m going to do penance I’d better do it on my own.”
“Suit yourself. I’ll come visit you in the convent.”
“Do that.” She did climb off the bed, and he let her go, relieved that the tension was gone. She was accepting him, smiling at him, as if, damn it, he were an old English sheep dog. It wasn’t her fault. He’d done his best to foster her opinion of his harmlessness. She didn’t need another man coming on to her, not while she was still enmeshed in a si
tuation that sounded sticky indeed.
But he was beginning to get tired of feeling like a eunuch. She’d slept in his arms for close to half an hour before he drifted off himself, lulled by the sound of the incessant rain on the metal roof directly overhead, and during that half hour it had been all he could do to keep from unbuttoning that rumpled silk dress that clung so damply and so enticingly to her curves. Her forehead had rested against his chin, and it wouldn’t have taken much to tilt her back a bit, to put his mouth on hers. She was so overwrought she probably wouldn’t have objected, more than willing to accept an hour or so of oblivion, even with an old English sheep dog.
He was glad he hadn’t succumbed to the temptation. If he had he knew what would happen. Right now she’d be buttoning her clothes, refusing to meet his eyes, emitting brittle, sophisticated conversation. And once she left his rooms he’d never see her again.
No, better to wait. Better to ignore the tension in his shoulders, the blood pulsing in his crotch, the itching in his fingers. Hell, Claire probably didn’t even think he had a crotch.
“I’ll walk you back.” He swung his long legs over the side of the bed and started to pull on his sneakers.
“There’s no need …”
“I’ll walk you back.”
“What if Marc is watching?”
He handed her the rumpled silk raincoat, then pulled on his own leather bomber jacket. “Then I expect he’ll be in touch. You’re not afraid of him, are you? You said you didn’t think he was capable of murder.”
A shadow crossed her face, and he would have given anything to have prodded further, to find out what she was thinking. But he’d pushed enough for one day. “No, I’m not afraid of him,” she said, her voice lacking conviction. “Let’s go.”
It was midafternoon, and the rain was still coming down steadily. The gutters were awash, the passersby an army of bobbing black umbrellas. Tom took Claire’s arm when they crossed the first street and didn’t let go until they were in front of her building.
She stopped, clearly torn, and he couldn’t resist teasing her. “No thanks, I won’t come up.”
“I’m sorry, of course you should,” she murmured, distracted.
“I should, but you’re nervous as a cat.” She looked pinched and cold and miserable, huddled against the rain, and he wished he could put his arms around her, take her back to his rooms and build a fire in the smoky fireplace and warm her to the bones. He knew he couldn’t. Not yet.
“Sorry,” she said again, pushing a pale, nervous hand through her red gold hair. “Thank you for everything, Tom. For letting me cry all over you, among other things.”
He didn’t say anything. She wanted reassurance, she wanted charm, she wanted his easy, nonthreatening smile. Right now he no longer felt like giving them to her. “You’re welcome,” he said. “Before you go in it’s only fair if I mention one thing.”
The worry creased her high forehead again. “What’s that?”
He moved too quickly for her to duck, to realize his intent. He caught her narrow shoulders in his big hands, pulled her wet, startled face up to his, and kissed her, a brief, thorough kiss that didn’t help the uproar his hormones were in.